McCARTHY AND THE ARMY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27369, 7 June 1954, Page 9

McCARTHY AND THE ARMY

Senator Releases Transcripts

(Rec*. 1130 p.m.) WASHINGTON, June 6. Senator Joseph McCarthy was reported last night to have warned the Secretary of the Army (Mr Robert Stevens) in a telephone call last February that he would “live to regret it” if he ordered his officers not to testify before the McCarthy sub-committee. The quotation was contained in an edited transcript of some monitored telephone calls between the Senator and Mr Stevens, which were handed to reporters by Senator McCarthy. The transcript also showed that Senator McCarthy told the Army Secretary in the same conversation: “I am going to kick the brains out of anyone who protects Communists.” Four days after this talk, Mr Stevens changed his stand and at the luncheon meeting reached a “memorandum of understanding” with Senator McCarthy by which he agreed to produce the officers at the Senate’s hearings into alleged Communist infiltration of the Army.

The release of excerpts from the calls by the Senator immediately raised the question whether the material edited out was less favourable to Senator McCarthy. The calls disclosed that Senator McCarthy asked Mr Stevens on Novenrber 7. “for God’s sake'’ not to assign Private G. David Schine, a conscripted sub-committee assistant, to subcommittee work, because “all hell would break loose” from his critics. Senator McCarthy said Mr Roy Cohn, his 27-year-old counsel, was “completely unreasonable” about the treatment given to Private Schine. Mr Stevens agreed that his problem with Private Schine had been Mr Cohn, not Senator McCarthy. “You never have done or said anything that spurred me on this situation at all, other than to take a friendly interest,” he told Senator McCarthy. The Army has charged that Senator McCarthy and Mr Conn tried, by improper means, to win favoured Army treatment for Private Schine. A February 20 call from Mr Stevens to Senator McCarthy followed the Army Secretary’s order forbidding officers to testify before Senator McCarthy. Two days earlier Senator McCarthy had told a Brigadier-General he was “not fit to wear that uniform.” “Will Live to Regret It” The transcript showed that Senator McCarthy told Mr Stevens: “You are not going to order them to appear before my committee? Just go ahead and try it, Robert. I am going to kick the brains out of anyone who protects Communists. If that is the policy of you, you just go ahead and do it. I will guarantee that you will live to regret it.” During the November 7 call, in which the Senator asked Mr Stevens not to assign Private Schine to the subcommittee, Senator, McCarthy said Private Schine was a “good boy, but there’s nothing indispensable about him.” “If he Mould get off at week-ends— Roy—it is one of the few things I have seen him completely unreasonable about,” the Senator said. “He thinks Dave should be a General and work from the penthouse of the Waldorf.” [Reporters asked Senator McCarthy for an explanation of the* dashes around the word “Roy.” He said they apparently indicated an omission. The Senator said that he told Mr Stevens: “Roy says it is impossible to get out the three interim reports on the Voice of America investigation unless Private Schine gets to work on them on. week-ends.”] ' In a further discussion, of Army leaves for Private Schine, Senator McCarthy suggested Mr Stevens might “let him come back for week-ends or something so his .girls won’t get too lonesome.” Then, in what appeared to be an afterthought, h® said: “Maybe if they shave his hair off, he won’t want

The reading of monitored telephone conversations began at Friday’s hearing, the - twenty-seventh day. They created the most explosive session. Senator McCarthy said monitored calls between Mr Stevens and Senator Stuart Symington (Democrat, Missouri) “explode the whole Army case” against him. He said a March 8 call in which Mr Stevens told Senator Symington rumours about the Army report on Private Schine and Mr Cohn were “very much exaggerated” and knocked the Army charges “completely out «f the window.” Senator ’ McCarthy also demanded that Senator Symington disqualify himself as a member of the inquiry because, he said, it had been shown that Senator Symington told Mr Stevens he would work closely with him.

Senator Symington had refused to step down, and had challenged Senator McCarthy to take the issue to the floor of the full Senate. •

Senator McCarthy charged on Friday that the United States Justice Department helped to “light the fuse” that set off the Army charges against him. He demanded that the dates of monitored telephone calls between department officials and Mr Robert Stevens, secretary of the Army, be proved at the inquiry; Senator McCarthy made his charges against the Justice Department during the testimony of Mr Stevens’ appointment secretary, Mr John Lucas. Mr Lucas said he could not remember any monitored calls between Mr Stevens and Mr Herbert Brownell, the Attorney-General, but he did recall some between Mr Stevens and Mr William Rogers, a Deputy-Attorftey-General.

Just before the. session recessed until Monday, Mr Cohn announced he would agree to having his monitored calls placed in the record. He said he expected similar action by Mr Carr before Monday.

Demand for Dates and Times Senator McCarthy promptly demanded that the Army produce the date and times of all calls between Mr Stevens and Justice Department officials.

He said Mr Rogers “took part in lighting the fuse . . . setting up the machinery” for the Army’s charge of improper conduct on Senator McCarthy’s part on behalf of Private G. David Schine.

One of the calls revealed that Senator Symington said he wanted to work closely with Mr Stevens and that he recommended that the Army Secretary hire a former Democratic White House counsel, Mr Clark Clifford, as his lawyer. Senator Symington also told Mr Stevens that Senator McCarthy would “do anything” to avoid “losing face” in the dispute with the Army. He advised Mr Stevens to “keep it

all down on paper” and to “forget the Marquis of Queensbury rules” in dealing with the Wisconsin Republican. Senator McCarthy callea on Senator Symington to testify on his part in the controversy under oath. Senator Symington countered with a motion to fire Mr Roy Cohn and Mr Francis Carr, Senator McCarthy’s two leading assistants, if they balk on disclosing their telephone calls to the army. This motion was not acted on immediately.